Are Life Coaches Worth It?

Questioning If Life Coaches Are Worth It?

I sat in the parking lot for 20 minutes before I went into the gym this morning… because I was scared and trying to find a way out of the pain that I knew was coming. Towards the end of that 20 minutes, my brain was like…”we could just go home.” I actually came really close to just driving home.

Fear…fear of pain, fear of failure, fear of anguish…all the fear my brain was producing inside my body almost kept me from doing what I really wanted to do today.

And I thought that you might be having the same experience. 

A lot of you are sitting outside the gym (as it were) of my coaching group. Wanting to go in, thinking of going in, wanting the results of going in, wanting the satisfaction, but your brain is scared.

And it’s trying to talk you out of going in and just going home and doing more of what you are already doing.

Our brain tells us there is so much risk involved when there’s not, and so I’m going to take a few minutes and coach you…Because I want you to remember that fear is an emotion.

So understand when you go to sign up and you’re scared, that’s 100% normal, but also, your fear is created by your thoughts. Not by coaching, not by signing up, not by the decision itself, not by whether it’s the right or wrong decision for you.

Fear is created by thoughts.

And these are the thoughts I want to coach you on in today’s episode:

• It might not work.
• That’s a lot of money for something I should be able to figure out on my own.
• It’ll be scary and vulnerable and humiliating getting coached in front of people.
• I need to straighten up my life before I get coached.
• I know what to do - I don’t need coaching, I just need to do what I know.
• Maybe I’m not worth the investment.

Are Life Coaches Worth The Money?

Okay, next, another thought that creates fear for us is that, okay, well, that's a lot of money for something I should be able to figure out on my own. Like we have a lot of fear and, like, anxiety and shame created by this thought that, like, okay, I should just be able to figure out this thing on my own, figure out how to think about myself on my own.

The first thing that I would ask you if I was coaching you is I would say, why? Why should you be able to figure this out? And what does thinking that you should cost you? What does thinking you should be able to figure this out keep you from? It keeps you the same by believing that you should know how to figure this out, it keeps you the same. It keeps you not figuring it out and just shaming yourself and telling you yourself that you should be able to take which is just totally made up. Be like telling myself that I should be able to hike at 30% for 4 hours, right?

Are Group Life Coaches Worth It?

Another thing that is creating fear for us is the thought that it's going to be scary and vulnerable, and humiliating, to get coached in front of other people. I think this is like a really big fear for many of you. I could be all in except that like the thought of like being coached in front of other people and other people seeing your mess and other people seeing like your judgment and your thoughts and like, everything else is really, like, scary, right? And so we all go to sign up and our brain is like, well, like people are going to know what's everything about me? And I don't like all these things about me, and that's going to be really embarrassing. But it turns out that the opposite is true. Like, our brain is worried about this, about how we will appear socially. And it turns out that, like the opposite of what we think is going to happen happens.

What happens in the group is that you really start to understand, maybe for the first time ever on a very deep level, that there is nothing wrong with you and that all our brains work the exact same way. Like, I know you hear me? Come on here and say, like, everybody thinks that they're not enough. And like, secretly, you're like, no, nobody thinks that like I do. Yeah, right. Like, our brains are pointing out all our flaws, they are giving us thoughts that are creating the opposite of what we want in our lives. They fight to be right, even when it's hurting us, and that is a universal human experience. And there is so much love and acceptance and compassion that happens to yourself when you start to really see that in other people. Not only does getting coached in the group give you tons of access to coaching and tons of access to new thoughts about things that you didn't even know were keeping you stuck? It also just gives you so much compassion for yourself and your human experience, and instead of feeling vulnerable, you start to feel safer than ever.

Do I Really Need Life Coaching?

Another hesitation to sign up for coaching is the thought that I already know what to do. I don't need coaching, I just need to do what I already know, right? And this thought can come up for us when we have listened to the podcast. Maybe we've even had coaching before and intellectually we understand the principles, we know what our brain is doing. We have some awareness and we think we know the adjustments that need to be made. And I think this can even come up for us when we've been in coaching before, like either with me or with another coach. And we think we know the answers, we think we know what we need to think and what we need to change.

Brains keep thinking. And every day we wake up and we have to manage our thoughts today in this moment. And that maintenance mean that coaching is always useful if we have results that we want to change in our lives. We don't have to let the thought that we should know it by now keep us from the coaching that will help us. Like what I have learned is that if my brain is the thing always in my way, managing that brain is where I want to invest my time and money. And it's never about what I know and don't know, it's about what I can see and what I can't. And we never arrive at a place where we, like, know enough because it's not about knowing. Our brain never stops thinking, and where we are in our lives is always different. And because we are the ones thinking the thoughts, we don't actually know the coaching we need. Coaching is so different than knowing.

If Life Coaches Are Worth It, Do I Deserve It? 

Finally, the last thought that I think can often create a lot of fear for us when we sign up for coaching is the thought like, maybe you don't deserve it? Like, maybe it's just not for a person like you that has made so many mistakes and just can't seem to get it together. Like all these thoughts about like, maybe you're not worth it, maybe you don't deserve it. Maybe you're not worth the investment. This is 100% a thought error, and it is one of our brains favorites. Our brains love to tell us that we don't deserve things, that we aren't worthy of the things that we want. We aren't worthy of love or approval, that we aren't enough. And even though our brains offer us this thought that we don't deserve it and we're not worthy, it is never true. And I want you to just, like, throw it in the garbage every time your brain gives it to you.

As a child of God, you not only deserve to choose your life, it is your inalienable right. And nothing. Nothing you do or choose can separate you from your 100% worthiness and your entitlement and right to create anything you want for yourself in your life. You don't have to earn the right to choose your life. You don't have to earn your worthiness to pursue your goals and dreams and the experiences that you want to have while you are on earth.